New Orleans Begins To Tear Down Confederate Monuments

New Orleans starts to get rid of monuments of racist Confederate history

New Orleans has taken a first major step in fulfilling its 2015 promise to tear down four prominent Confederate statues, an attempt to scrub the city’s public spaces of what many see as white supremacist symbols.

City workers began removing the Battle of Liberty Place statue at 1:25 a.m. Monday in an effort to avoid disruption by protesters who want the monuments to stay, reported The Associated Press. Erected in 1891, the obelisk honors members of the Crescent City White League, a group of all-white Confederate veterans who killed members of the city’s post-Civil War integrated police force.

Statues commemorating Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard as well as Jefferson Davis (the first ― and only ― president of the Confederate States of America) will be removed in the coming days. All four of the structures will be relocated to a museum or another “place where they can be put in historical context,” according to a press release issued by the mayor’s office